Strange colleague - how do you suggest I deal with this?

[Tagnarsragingheart]

I work in a large corporate company and I am relatively senior. We have a 21 year old graduate who has been with us a few months who came straight from oxbridge.

He has been showing a lot of “initiative” which occasionally borders on intrusiveness. Several times a day he requests to be part of senior management and client meetings which he would not qualify for. He also spends much of his time going from office to office and starting up conversations with members of the senior teams. I suppose he would call it networking, although it’s a bit precocious. I’ve witnessed a few of the conversations he initiate and they usually start with him asking for “advice” about something that he has perhaps picked up from an online bio of the person. Or an overheard conversation. or something he has heard they have an interest in. Eg, for another senior colleague it was Golf and another it was travelling in Indonesia. He occasionally gets it wrong but does not pick up the cues that he is along the wrong lines (focuses in on the wrong thing.) general consensus is that he’s very bright but a bit disingenuous.

Anyway, I heard a knock on my office door yesterday and turned round to find it was my turn, as he was standing there asking for “advice” about what to get his mum for a Christmas present! I was really busy but chatted with him for a while and gave him a few suggestions and tried to get him to leave. He then said that he had googled me and seen that I had once written a dating column in a local newspaper. This was over TEN years ago and is on a small bio from the newspaper about 20 pages deep into a search on my name in google.

He then told me he’d written to the newspaper to get archive copies of my columns. I said oh, they are really not worth reading, I’m actually much more interested in books these days. He said no, no he was going to get them and read them and if i’d been published then everyone in the office should know about it and celebrate me.

I then told him that I had no interest in everyone in the office, or him, seeing my old columns from over ten years ago. He winked, and left.

Maybe he thinks that I want everyone to see them but part of me feels he just wants to humiliate me. Yes, they are publicly available, but he is really having to hunt them down so it’s not like they are easily accessible.

He then sent me an email saying “so good to talk about your columns I’d love to continue the discussion soon.”

Any advice on a strongly worded email which makes it clear that I am not harbouring some secret desire for him to show my old columns to people at the company? Also an email that I can show I sent to express my wishes in case he goes ahead and I have to bring it up with HR.

Dear Sad Grad

I found your research into my article quite frankly bizarre and wonder if you have a social life.

In the office if you are bored and have time on your hands could you find something more work related to do and not disturb others with the time wasting chats.

This would pissed me off no end.

I would have a word with his line manager and tell them how unprofessional he is being. Is he getting any actual work done?

Oh god I know the type!

I’m glad you’re going to email him and speak to his manager. His creepy, unprofessional behaviour needs to be stamped on or you’ll potentially have years of fuckwittery from the wanker.

This is very weird, I agree. Has he done this level of stalking of your male colleagues too? He seems to be trying to belittle/discredit you, in a way that he probably wouldn't, I suspect, other males. Nip this in the bud, and maybe send an email to that effect as Lady has suggested. Something in this just says misogynist/patriarchy to me.

I've had this exact experience. I'm wondering if it's the same person! In my experience he used to interrupt senior meetings and try to delegate his responsibilities to other team.members as he seemed them too junior for him (he'd been there 4 weeks..)

In the end he admitted he was on the autistic spectrum and also had ADHD. He then proceeded to accuse myself and my manager of bullying because we wouldn't facilitate his delusional demands to attend senior meetings etc

After dragging us through hell, he then left a week later.

You've been warned

He sounds like an entitled narcissist trying to gain power by proving he can dig up people's pasts.... possibly?

Forward his email to his LM, cc him in and say 'could you have a word with X around appropriate work place conduct?'

This IS a weird one but how to handle it?

Personally I'd ignore it completely. Just ignore. Anything else will give him what he really wants which is fuel.

Very odd. I would block him from your social media if he is like this. And report him to his manager

That's creeped me right out, what a weirdo. The m/f dynamic and subject of dating makes it even more so.

I don't credit him with being autistic, I think the wink indicates he knows exactly how creepy he's being.

Yes to a word with his line manager, see if it can be nipped in the bud. See if he can be given more work, as he obviously has too much spare time on his hands if he's hanging around pestering people he doesn't work with and googling their life history

You could also return the favour if you could be arsed and spend a pleasant afternoon with a glass of wine stalking his social media, print out a pile of the more interesting screenshots and comments , collate them and sweetly suggest that his work online was so excellent - you felt all the staff should be aware of what a wonderful array of opinions he holds and that you felt he was worth celebrating,

( I'm a professional social media auditor ( a legalised stalker), and you'd be amazed at how easy it is to find volumes of shit on the majority of the population). I'm certain that if you gave me his name, and a couple of other details - I could stop him in his tracks in about an hour.

This is straight from the “how to get ahead” seminars.

Yes, a lot of this sounds like stuff from self-help business books. That plus problems reading social cues and/or copying behaviour he's seen from other people or on TV.

He’s getting this all wrong BUT if he is willing to go the extra mile for his career that should be harnessed and redirected for the value of the company.

Speak to his line manager and ask for your feedback to be included when they next speak along the lines of:

‘X is very committed to developing interpersonal roles within the company but this is not the most appropriate use of time at this stage. Rather than focusing on developing relationships with senior staff, more effort should be going into technical skills and networking with colleagues at the same level.’

I would have said ' that's inappropriate and quite intrusive tbh ', in my head 20 minutes too late.
He's being a wee dickhead really .

I would arrange a meeting with him and his line manager and explain exactly what you don't like.

Do your graduates have mentors or someone responsible for the scheme (not necessarily a line manager)? If so, the mentor should be good for addressing these issues in general and how he’s settling in to working life etc

Please, whatever you do, don't tell him you are 'flattered' 😱

don't use the response from PersonaNonGarter

that kind of thing is partly how these dickheads get on at work.

he knows exactly what he's doing - hence the wink.

I'd ignore him when he says stuff like that and also report to his line manager.

I would go with the email from the first page (theprovinciallady)

I have never met anyone from Oxbridge (or along those lines) so maybe it is to do with that as others suggest. It sounds incredibly weird to me and would freak me out. It's definitely better to have his wings clipped now. Giving him the benefit of the doubt if he isn't being manipulative then at least he can save himself some embarrassment in the future by having it pointed out to him.

I think next time you see him after the hols you should (possibly publicly) condescendingly ask if the relationship column had any helpful advice for his problems, suggest him a well known current agony aunt to email if he has unresolved relationship issues